Concrete passions

That’s the City of Light? As you travel ­toward the French metropolis from Paris-Charles de Gaulle airports, you will pass lots of buildings made of concrete. Les grands ensembles, those sprawling apartment complexes on the outskirts of the city (photo: Les Arcades du Lac), house many poor and elderly people. Laurent Kronental photographed some of them in front of their postmodern abodes for his series “Souvenir d’un ­Futur,” creating powerful and subversively poetic images.

GETTING THERE FROM GERMANY

Lufthansa flies to Paris (CDG) several times daily from Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC). Architecture tours, e.g. at ga-paris.fr.